


Madness And Memories

by Barbedbeat



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Awakening, Nightmares, and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 00:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12120627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barbedbeat/pseuds/Barbedbeat
Summary: A short tale of nightmares, memories and madness.Because Palinopsia and I were thirsting for a few drops of awakened angst.





	Madness And Memories

At first there was pain. Sharp, burning, throbbing pain, that shot through her ribcage and made her breath gurgle with blood and phlegm.

And then came the smell of wet moss mixed with sweat and ashes, soon followed by flashes of colour. The leaves all around dripped with dew, and the jungle glistened with the pink and golden hues of the sky at dawn. And last struck the awareness, a bout of pure, absolute awareness. 

That it was a shame, a real shame, having to die so early in the morning. 

She kept on traipsing through the wilderness until exhaustion and blood loss bent her knees. A cough wracked her chest, and her arm shot instinctively to cover her mouth. Red flecks mixed with streaks of blue warpaint, making it flicker with inklings of purple.

Iselmyr closed her eyes and prayed, prayed with all her heart, that her sacrifice wouldn’t be vain. Then, she heard them. They were approaching. _Fast_. 

With all the strength she could gather, she stood up, shield and sword on the ready. Silence. Leaves shuffled, to her right. And silence fell, again. Bastards. She spat a goop of blood at her feet and let out a wet bellow. 

“Come on!”

She could feel her heart pounding, rage mounting fast. 

“Come on, ye cowards!”

A twig snapped behind her back. Her attacker didn’t find the time to yelp, as she slammed her studded shield on the inside of his elbow, offering a clear path for her blade to severe his jugular. Thick ribbons of crimson sprayed upwards. 

Her second opponent staggered to her right. Young one. Naïve. In for an easy kill, he’d thought.What a grave mistake. She could see the fear in his eyes and smell its bitter stench. “Come at me”, she sputtered again, her voice cracking, “come at me, ye cock!”

His axe chopped the air between them and retreated, tentatively. She spat in 

his face, but spoke no more. She was at her strength’s end, fuelled only by rage and sheer survival. She raised her shield and locked eyes with him. Then, she slid to her left. A feint. The boy bought it, no surprises.

As he lifted his axe, her blade had reached behind his knee, biting through his tendons. 

A shriek of horror accompanied him to the ground, quickly turning into a frantic plea. 

Unconsciousness settled on him like a thick blanket as Iselmyr’s foot crushed his jaw. 

Her blade sang in bloodlust when her arm coiled back to deliver the fatal blow. 

 

But, instead of the glory of flesh and blood, it found the humiliating embrace of mud. 

Her legs had finally given away, leaving her kneeling in the mud. A nausea had seized her. Deathly, excruciating, unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Her eyes shot downwards, taking in the feathered length of arrow that now protruded from her 

stomach. Her hands hovered towards it, as if willing to grasp her one-way ticket to the Wheel.

A second arrow caught her in the liver before she could do as much as move. A roar of pain erupted from her ruptured 

chest as another dart landed on her back, followed by another. 

And another. 

And another. 

And _another_. 

_And another_.

* * *

 

 

Aloth scrambled in terror, hands clawing the hard wooden floor as the memory of death, _her_ death, seared his bones with agony and made his soul rave with fury.

Flashes of white filled his vision as his consciousness strived to surface. When it did, he was screaming. 

It took him a while to catch his breath, heart still pounding on the verge of pain. The world around him kept on buzzing long after he’d frantically splashed his face with spatter after spatter of cold water; and when it stopped, he crumbled. 

Knuckles white, he leaned over his dressing table. His eyes were closed, as if scared to look into the mirror that hung in front of them. And when he did, the ones that gazed back were not his. He sucked in a ragged breath as he watched his features twist and warp, the scars on his naked body turning into tribal markings. 

He started to shake. “Keep yer heid, auld lad, keep yer heid!” he told himself. Or was it her? It was his lips that moved, but the voice… whose voice was it? Whose mind? Who? Just who…? 

“Who am I?”

The mirror hit the ground with a glassy scream.

“WHO AM I?!”

He couldn’t tell anymore. 

 

His steps uneven, he staggered back to the bed and fell on the coarse mattress, head in hands. The first rays of light seeped in through his bedroom window and lapped at his tears-streaked face. He looked up, sobbing quietly, as Neketaka’s morning bustle reprised his chaotic dance down on the docks below. 

Another day had begun, its pointless routine unwinding before him, punctuated by the yells of fishmongers and the violent sloshing of the ocean’s waves.

But today, something was different.

Today, something broke the rhythm, like a violin playing out of turn in an otherwise perfectly rehearsed ensemble.

Today, he heard a sailor announce, a ship from the Dyrwood was rolling into port.

Today, he thought, mouth agape and eyes wide as Caed Nua’s coat of arms appeared flapping on the horizon, the Watcher had arrived in the Deadfire Archipelago.


End file.
